Quality takes longer. Sometimes, significantly longer, for many reasons. That’s why something top-shelf, costs so much more than commodity, when it doesn’t seem to have much more, in the way of features.
Many orgs aren’t interested in spending that much extra time on it (which is their prerogative). The customer base tends to be smaller, and a lot more fickle. It’s really difficult to make a living, doing top-Quality work.
Source: I worked for many years, for a company known for top-shelf stuff. I’m quite familiar with Quality as an everyday feature.
> I always thought of that as “yak-shaving,” or “bikeshedding.”
I think of yak-shaving as ending up (by lack of discipline, or perhaps out of necessity) working on some supporting aspect of a supporting aspect of a supporting aspect... in service of the original task.
So, a potential time suck, for sure, but "perfection is the enemy of completion" doesn't have to be that deep - if we're throwing out more clever phrases and war stories - another phrase that comes to mind about just "polishing" and insisting it's not good enough to ship yet is it's (slightly NSFW)
"just like masturbation - it feels good, but you're only f*cking yourself". You need to ship.
Bike Shedding I think of as social - nearly Peter Principle in practice - everybody thinks they've got something to contribute to the construction of the bike shed because it's a thing that's easy to manage, and people want to be helpful and/or make a mark.
These phrases have a different meanings and it’s important to highlight them